The aesthetic beauty of a patterned blade
 

This thread is to share examples of patterned blades and hopefully some of the more unusual ones.

First one is a Persian wootz blade 16/17th century.

Indian khanda blade crystalline wootz steel. 18/19th century.

Turkish kilij blade early sham wootz 16th century

Finest Indian pattern weld blade 18th century

Tibetan hairpin Damascus 18th century

Interesting Tibetan dagger blade with "jelly roll" Damascus pattern 19th century

Chinese saber blade with twistcore AND a horse tooth hamon

Indonesian Keris with unusual twisting pamor. Age unknown

Keris blade with cool whirlpool pattern at base. Probably 19th century.

Balinese Keris blade with floating islands. 19th century or earlier.

Balinese Keris with nice pattern. 19/20th century

I know most of these blades of yours - gorgeous and I'm envious..........

Very nice examples, few interesting patterns here.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...4ffa52e5fa.jpg

Russian site?

Of course, I am sure you know it.

Neat presentation Rick
 

Neat presentation Rick, here are some fine pattern on some Keris. If I find the time to bring some swords down from the walls, I'll post some more photos.

First pair is a 25luk Royal Malay Keris, likely Terengganu, note the alternative faces, one face is Malela with no Pamor to note, the reverse is an exceptional and very complicated pamor that is almost Cosmic in appears and runs far deeper and more complicated than these chevrons at the base. Full viewing is private only, please do not ask for complete images, this is my personal choice.

The second is a Bali Keris, again with alternative pamor to each face, now in a private collection. Simple, but at the same time complicated and beautiful.

The third is another I keep here, a very nice shark tooth pamor, likely to be described as horse tooth if it was a Chinese sword. A collector recently had this blade type and pattern copied by a very competent smith who did a nice job in replicating it with a subtle twist and less defined edge patterns. I do love strong bold patterns such as this.

I have others with multiple pamor as time permits.

Gavin

I hope, these are unusual enough.

It's an old Kilij (wootz), a Saber from somewhere (laminated sheer steel, scarf welded, probably India) and a very beautiful Piso Gading (laminated sheer steel with inserted edge) in an early state of finish. All three blades are unfinished now, because they are long time projects, sorry.


Roland

Turkish ribbon
 

Two yataghans swords with blade forged in a pattern known as Turkish Ribbon. Several strips of twisted steel rods are forged together to produce this pattern. Usually the blade are forged from 4 - 5 strips. These rare exemplars are made from 6 and 7 strips of twisted steel.

Turkish ribbon
 

And a Kilij (Pala) sword with 7 strips of twisted steel rods

SIMPLY AMAZING! :eek:

Thank you for sharing. I like the window cut outs. Neat way to photograph the patterns. Some very fine patterns in this grouping.

Same here, those are some superb turkish ribbon examples.

Thanks for sharing some examples Gavin. I particularly like the Bugis blade with the fine horse tooth Hamon in addition to the central pattern. Superb!

Thanks for sharing your examples Artzi! Lovely examples of twistcore!

This is one of my favorite examples, you can get lost in it.

Thanks Rick.

I do see how the Malay people and other Keris collectors refer to the pamor as shark teeth as the repeated pattern layering back to the centre looks like rows of shark teeth, where as the Chinese Horse tooth patterns seen to often lack this depth of rows.

Gavin

Thanks for your contribution Roland. I really like the Hamon on the bottom example!

good polish and etch
 

In the mid 90's I visited Jaipur and in one of the arms dealer shops I met an old guy, sitting on the floor, legs crossed, polishing a knife blade with a small stone glued to a short wood stick. Worked very slowly as if he has all the time in the world. I visited the shop every day to watch the polishing process advancing. after a week or so he deep the blade into a bowl with acid for 24 hours. He refused of course to tell me what type of acid he used, just mentioned it is an extract from a natural plant. here is the result. One of the best wootz pattern I have seen.

Here is another type of pattern, it is a Japanese yoroi doshi tanto, 1800s, Gassan school with "ayasugi hada" which looks like a series of undulating rolling waves. Various schools of swordsmiths in Japan were able to replicate the identifying traits of their particular school which they made by manipulating laminated steel billets in various configurations some of which are shown below. Yoroi doshi tanto are an armor piercing blade which are extremely thick at the spine, this one is .5 inches. You can see the lamination on this, it appears to have an two sides of folded steel with a hardened core which can especially be seen at the point of the blade.

Chinese saber blade with twistcore AND a horse tooth hamon


Interested in this.
Are there any more pictures?